"AA" - Arcades Anonymous At least that is what my girlfriend tells me because I have arcade and gaming stuff all over the house and her receiving my groovygamegear packages at home too. Note to self, next time have Randy T orders to my work and update shipping address.

Eight ball, corner pocket...

As some of you might know I started a showcase arcade cabinet build (see my signature) earlier this summer and my pool table looked like this:

Lots of little tasks and projects going on right now before I can start my bartop cabinet build but I do have most of my parts ready. Let's see what's on the table shall we:

Well earlier this year I got bit with the Street Fighter IV bug and hoping it would live up to my expectations and as Borat would say... NOT! The game looks very impressive but doesn't do a thing for me compared to a good old game of SFII on MAME. As you know Microsoft is a pain in the you know what when it comes to third party periphals and my choices at the time was to either live with playing on the crappy d-pad, get gouged by a scalper for a Madcatz SE or TE fight stick or do a controller hack. Unfortunately I don't have the tools (ie. solder iron) or skills to do a pad hack because the points to solder on are so small and precise. I found a local place that builds custom controllers using "genuine" HAPP parts for 360 for around $200. I don't mind the $ amount and besides I could have spent the same to get a Matcatz TE which uses Sanwa parts. I still don't understand what the hype is about Japanese parts from all these fanboys who grew up playing HAPP here in North America. Anyways, this stick has always bothered me because it didn't quite feel the same as the arcade because when I play street fighter I can never do the roundhouse sweep and fireball combo with Ken or Ryu consistently. I know it is not me because I had this stick hooked up on my PC playing SFII via MAME and when I would hook up my old X-arcade I can do the combo just fine. How could this be?? x-arcade stick > "genuine" HAPP Anyways, my itch to play SFIV died pretty fast and I put the this stick on the back burner till a few weeks ago when I downloaded SF2HD remix from the Xbox Live market place. I opened up this stick despite it voiding my warranty and found out it was not a genuine HAPP Stick in there but some sort of knock off. From the top it looks like it but from the bottom it is far from it. I contacted the person I bought the stick from and he swore it is genuine HAPP because that is what his supplier told him. A genuine HAPP competition is like < $10 so how much cheaper can this knock off be? Also when I opened the stick I noticed they didn't use quick disconnects but soldered all the wires to the parts and I asked about that and he said they did that so there is no lag and helps to "optimize" play

Next item on the table was I had to repair a HTPC I built for my brother in-law. He had kept this computer in a cabinet on his wall unit which had no air circulation and I warned him that it will either kill the computer or power supply. Luckily for him it was just a power supply and I had an extra one lying around to swap. Now the exact same fit but works. The cost of finding the exact one costs about as much as the case it's self, stupid micro-atx desktop cases.

Next was I had to just install and fill 4x1TB drives with media for a close friend of mine who is using his laptop as a HTPC. He comes over to my place all the time and loves how I have over 12TB of movies and tv series on my media server at my disposal at all times without even having to get up and switch discs. Now he is 1/3 of the way there because discs are so yesterday

Last project to finish before I can start planning my bartop arcade was a dual player arcade controller, which I plan on surprising my cousin for taking a week off to entertain my family back in September when we went down there for a vacation. When I was there he was floored when he saw emulators played on my netbook. I always carry my netbook everywhere I go along with a Sega Saturn USB controller which I left behind for him when I loaded up all my emulators on his desktop computer. His girlfriend was getting all crazy playing Ms. Pacman but couldn't for the life of her use the game pad and kept saying she needs a joystick to play

I picked up this x-arcade from a good friend of mine for $20 minus the x-arcade controller board but came with HAPP buttons and x-arcade sticks. I ordered a GP-Wiz from Randy T to install in this and figure USB would be great for my cousin since he could bring this from his house to condo when he has some friends over and hook it up to his HTPC which I built for him easily.

Fortunately, the place where the old x-arcade pcb is the pefect fit for the GP-Wiz

I started to do the wiring last night around 12:30am and got all the connection done on the PCB side. It was getting pretty late, 1:30am, so I decided to pack it in since I had to work the next day. I know if I started and ran into a problem I would probably stay up the entire night to figure it out cause that is what happened when I was wiring up my showcase project.

I will finish it up tonight, test it and then use a glue gun to secure all the connections since this will be shipped to Miami. Now a sneak peak at what I have so far for my MAME Bartop.

So I had some extra arcade and computer parts lying around so I thought to myself why not build a bartop cabinet? As you can see my logic and rationalization make perfect sense but deep down inside I think I need help

I had recently retired this Intel® Desktop Board D945GCLF with Integrated Intel® Atom™ Processor as my media server which I picked up for $50 two summers ago. I thought it was cute and price was just right considering it came with an on-board Atom processor as well. Funny thing is the Kingston 2GB stick of ram cost just as much as the motherboard.

This small ITX form factor is the perfect size for building a compact bartop and just enough power to handle most games with the exception of the ones that required hard drive images like Killer Instict and Gauntlet Legends. If you see in this picture, I put the hard drive next to the motherboard to give you an idea.

The same friend of mine who sold me the x-arcade for $20 also sold me this 17" acer LCD monitor for $20 as well. This is also perfect because this little engine that could motherboard only has a VGA port anyways.

I know the LCD needs a good cleaning but I used it the other day to load Windows 7 on a friend's computer and picture is crisp and clear.

I also order a LCD wall mount for my 24" desktop monitor which unfortunately was not the right one but will work perfectly for mounting and securing this 17" LCD inside the bartop without having to make some sort of strapping.

Mount off bracket

Mount on bracket

Order came in earlier this week from groovygamegear.com and this is what I got

Since I can't really mount a coin door on this bartop I wanted it to have an authentic arcade feel to it so I got this and can't wait to wire it up to see what it looks like

Here is the ITX power supply I will be using which is pretty small as you can see.

When I went to my local computer shop I found this neat little USB powered speaker cube which is 4"x4"x4". I tried it on my showcase cabinet and alright. Not good enough for a full sized cabinet but for a small bartop it will do. Only cost $15 too and has a 4 port USB hub.

I will probably make a cardboard mock up of this bartop and hopefully start and finish cutting all the wood this Sunday when I go visit William. Should be easy since we know exactly how to fit the HAPP parts onto the control panel now. Last time with my showcase it was a learning experience for both of us. Stay tuned!

A very productive weekend, I finished wiring the X-arcade stick for my cousin on Saturday.

Connected it to my netbook and tested it and all worked on the first try too. Thanks for Randy T for such an amazing product!

Yesterday we a very productive day too as I started and pretty much finished my bartop cabinet minus a few small details.

I might re-do the control panel as one of the buttons is a little bit off due to my friend William have a few beers Regardless this part was a lot faster since he had all the templates prepared for the router and depth settings written down from my showcase build.

Have to go to Home Depot later and get one of those magnetic spring latches that pop open when you push on it that way I don't have to put a knob or handle on the back. The hole on the bottom right will be filled in with one of those hole covers for desks for feeding cables through. I plan on using this for the power cord and other usb controllers like this:

Here is the last shot with the parts fitted in for fun, I am short one button but I know a good buddy of mine will probably come through for me once again! I will probably drop the monitor down 0.5"-1" later one.

Merry Christmas guys, not sure how many people were interested in my bartop arcade project but I managed to get it to 99% completion. Originally I was going to just leave it flat black but decided last week to spruce things up with some artwork which I had a local place print out. I had to re-do my original control panel to reflect the shift in the button layout and this is what it looks like now. I also swapped out the red, white and blue happ buttons from my 360 fight stick because I was having such a hard time getting the green and black button to match any of the Street Fighter artwork.

Side art on both sides

For console emulators here is your weapon of choice which is then plugged in via USB port made by Neutrik

Dark shot showing off the very nicely GGG Coin Drop red illuminated credit button as well as marquee which I use to light with $5 Noma LED X-mas lights I picked up earlier today on sale for 50% off. You can also see I have DeLuSioNal's MAME intro video too! Thanks a lot!!!

My bar top is pretty much done with the exception of the tinted plexiglass I plan on putting in front of the monitor bezel and I might change the marquee and make one to complete the Street Fighter theme I have going on. I was just too excited and had an extra mame marquee lying around which I trimmed to fit. Last step is I am going to put the melamine iron on trim but I am practicing trimming the excess with the tool I bought specifically for it and it isn't as easy as I thought. All in all this project hasn't taken me < 30 hours of work and I'm quite happy with the outcome.

Thanks for looking and feel free to ask if you have any questions. I would like to wish everyone a safe and Happy New Year!

Dude this thing is sick!!!!! Love the artwork. Did you do the control panel yourself? (meaning the splatter design on the buttons). Never thought about building a bartop until now. I would love to have a dedicated Street Fighter bartop like this.

Dude this thing is sick!!!!! Love the artwork. Did you do the control panel yourself? (meaning the splatter design on the buttons). Never thought about building a bartop until now. I would love to have a dedicated Street Fighter bartop like this.

The splatters were in one of the artwork PSD files I downloaded it and had to modify it to suit my button layout. I will definately design a new marquee with a Street Fighter title or theme to complete it. I was just too excited and sort or rushed things in the end and wanted to see the thing put together.

I also agree with HarumaN that the marquee looks out of place. If you follow through and do a marquee that matches the rest, as you mentioned, it would be the crowning touch to a great looking machine.

Not bad, but IMO, other than the logo itself, the style doesn't match the rest of the artwork. The characters are too cartoonish looking compared to the CP and side art, and you need some of the splatter effects to make it tie in better.

Not bad, but IMO, other than the logo itself, the style doesn't match the rest of the artwork. The characters are too cartoonish looking compared to the CP and side art, and you need some of the splatter effects to make it tie in better.

Ok, come to think of it I see your point in the style not matching. I just made another one quickly using the SFIV artwork.